


Dreamers in a Dream

by Zippit



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Celebratory Sex, F/M, banter as foreplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-23 01:42:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10709487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zippit/pseuds/Zippit
Summary: Natasha never expects James to regain his memories beyond the war. Her luck doesn't run like that. The both of them have done too much to deserve that mercy. Until James proves her wrong.





	Dreamers in a Dream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ashers_kiss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashers_kiss/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy and that I managed to capture some of what you wanted to see in these tags!
> 
> I love Bucky/Natasha so much and never write them as much as I should.
> 
> This is set nebulously at a point where Bucky is no longer under HYDRA control but obviously not as depicted in Captain America 3: Civil War and uses a comics based backstory for the both of them.

He gets his memories back in pieces. Steve comes first, which is unsurprising. The war comes next, in all it’s good and bad memories. The rest comes slower, comes in even more fragments than the rest. It’s slow enough of a process that Natasha doesn’t expect much from it. She doesn’t expect James to remember anything beyond what he knew from before the war, before he knew her, before he was the Winter Soldier, the myth within a legend.

She’s settled into this knowledge and made peace with it the best she knows how. James Barnes is the man who used to be the Winter Soldier and the man she thought she once knew is no more. If he ever was there to begin with. But that’s who she is. The one always moving on, never staying in one place long enough to build relationships, to build a future or a past. It’s a lonely existence but it’s what she’s accustomed to. She can change her spots to stripes but they don’t fade away completely.

She’s tucked away on her floor in Avengers Tower, feet looped over the arm of the couch she’s sprawled in. It’s been a slow week. A vacation week if you can call it that. Steve had insisted on it and on all of them getting out of the training facility, back into civilization. She didn’t know about him, but her plans consisted of staying put and not worrying about anything but herself. She twirls a few strands of her hair between her fingers. The silky red gloss is soft under her touch. The air kicks on and she shivers under the unexpected chill put into the air. She should go get socks or a blanket.

It’s a lazy day. One she so rarely allows herself to have, wearing her favorite pair of gray sweatpants and a well worn t-shirt with no bra. She closes her eyes and listens to the low murmur of the voices from the TV. It’s soothing in that nondescript way being in a crowd has. It takes her back to Bucharest and the smell of the street food vendors hawking their wares, the people jostling for the best bargain while shopping. The soft, still warm from the oven bread with just a hint of sweet that she’s hard pressed to find even in the ethnic mix that New York is. 

The easiness slides form her the moment her shoulders prickle with the telltale sign that someone’s watching her. She keeps her posture the same, as if nothing’s changed, and flicks her gaze around the room. She looks at the glass angled just right to get a view of the doorway, at another angled down the hall toward her other rooms. All sight lines she knows by heart. She’s too high up for someone to be outside. Even though all the windows still make both her and Clint twitchy. She was surprised Steve adjusted as well as he had with his last memories being from the middle of a war. But that’s Steve.

She shakes her head. Why is she wandering off on a tangent when someone’s invaded her space? Breached Tony’s supposedly unhackable fortress. JARVIS would’ve alerted her or the sounds of the doors sliding open should’ve alerted her. She was never that lost in her own thoughts to miss something as loud as the doors opening. She reaches between the couch cushions for the daggers she hid there in the first several weeks after agreeing to live in this bullseye of a building. She’s swinging her feet off the couch, daggers gripped in hand, when “Natalia” stops her cold.

She whips her head around to the corner the voice came from. It’s James in all his glory. A careful look on his face as he stands there, hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans, blue eyes gleaming at her with a look of familiarity, and wearing one of those scatter shot design t-shirts that are popular right now. He cut his hair weeks ago and it’s less of a straggly mess and something more presentable.

She rolls her eyes and slips the daggers back into their positions under the couch cushions. She curls back against the arm of the couch, legs tucked under her, while she leans her chin against the back.

“Barnes. Don’t you know it’s bad manners to sneak into a lady’s quarters like this?”

He quirks an eyebrow and his mouth twists up into a familiar smirk that makes Natasha’s heart pound. She’s seen it more and more in the recent months. It’s made her wonder how much of the James she knew in the Red Room was the amalgam of James Barnes and the Winter Soldier or entirely James fighting through the programming.

“You and I both know, if it was anyone but me, you’d have discovered them far sooner.”

She shakes her head at him as she bites back the smile. His praise always made her feel warm. It was one of the few things that kept her going way back when.

“What brings you here today? Shouldn’t you and Steve be off reliving old memories and complaining about how the city’s changed while you’ve been gone instead of bothering me?”

Natasha tilts her head to the side and watches as he shrugs a shoulder. She ignores how her pulse grows even faster as he walks towards her. His eyes locked with hers and something she can’t name in the depths of his eyes. It’s too familiar, too faded, and too new, too full of something she won’t let herself believe. He stops in front of her and his eyes skim over her face. He slides two gentle fingers against her cheek. She hates how she trembles and saves herself from being a complete fool by not pressing into the touch. He tucks her hair beyond her ear then curls his hand against her cheek.

It’s a supernova flare of heat roaring through her. It shouldn’t be like this. She shouldn’t still react to this man who doesn’t have the memories of who she was, of who they were. It’s unfair to the both of them. She was trained to have better control of herself than this.

He licks his lips. She can’t look away but if she did she’d find his metal hand tugging at a belt loop or running a fingertip along the edge of a pocket seam. He clears his throat and tries again. “I wanted you to know…I remember. I remember, Natalia.”

It takes a moment to click, for the penny to drop, for all those stupid cliches drilled into her head to run through her mind like traveling on an FTL ship. The words blurring past her, reality blurring past her, and all that’s in clear focus is James’ dear face. She blinks and it’s only been a few seconds. She was quick they always told her. It feels like an eternity later.

“I-I’m glad.” 

Her voice when it comes out is breathy and soft. Escaping from her instead of being sent out on purpose. 

“You remember too?”

It breaks her heart how unsure he sounds and how he wants to make sure he’s not making a mistake here. But a part of him is sure because his hand hasn’t left her face. His thumb keeps stroking her cheek.

“Yes, I do.”

Her mind’s been rebuilt so many times. Scraped out and restarted, rebooted, and remade for someone else’s intention that everything she knows, everything she remembers, she’s had to dig for and chase down to ground. Nailed down until the edges gained definition and the truth of the matter came out. Her and him and everything in between she was as sure as she could be with the bone deep feeling in her bones, the way she reacts to him, and how the memories that rise to the surface would never be sanctioned by their previous masters.

A grin breaks out across his face. The one that’s so familiar. The one that had been reserved just for her in the stolen moments on missions and the impossible spaces between. He leans down and slowly closes the space between them as he searches her eyes. She should put a stop to this. He has a new life to live. They were a thing of the past. They aren’t the same people they were back then. Could this still even work between them? She has red to atone for.

“Natalia” he breathes aginst her lips and Natasha closes her eyes and lets it happen. At the first touch of his lips against her, she gasps. That feeling she always gets when she’s near him slams through her at a hundred, thousand, a million times more force than it normally does. She cups his dear, dear face in her hands and kisses him hard.

She’s missed him. She’s missed his presence by her side. When she’s low enough and she’ll never admit this to anyone, but she resented James’ place at Steve’s side, constant and seemingly forever, when it used to be hers.

“James, James….” She’s murmuring low into each kiss. He pulls back from her and she reaches for him, unwilling to let him go. She’s just gotten him back. He can’t be leaving her now.

He shakes his head as he moves to come around the back of the couch. He keeps a hold of her hand as he does so, not looking away from her for a moment. She’s on her feet as he comes to stand before her. She’s wrapping her arms around his shoulders and kissing him hard, pressed close into the heat of him for the first time in too long. It feels like coming home. It feels like everything is finally right in her world again.

His hands, his lips, his tongue, are everywhere. They’re tracing her forehead, trailing over her hair, teasing down her neck. She loses track of time. Nothing but the heat of his touch and his kisses to ground her. She was branded with everything about him from the moment they first touched all those years ago, seeking forbidden solace in each other.

Her clothes have been discarded and so have his. She doesn’t know when it happens. She just knows his touch. They’re laid back out on the couch with its velvet warm a contrasting heat to James’ heat against her. Lips tease against her breasts as she curls her hands into his hair and tug at the strands. A particularly sharp nip has her rolling her hips up against him, a leg hooked over his waist, and her breathes coming far too fast.

He lifts his head and smirks at her. That beloved mouth of his and she draws him up to kiss it from his lips. It’s not the time to look too hard at this gift. He’s back. Her James’ with that sardonic tilt to his mouth. The smart words that would always be whispered quiet against her ear when no one else was around to see. Their comms silenced or static filled. She shivers and melts into his kiss.

A hand slides down her side, across her stomach then back and again. He’s teasing her. He’s teasing the both of them. She rolls her eyes at him and laughs. She can feel him hard against her leg. She nudges his shoulder and arches an eyebrow. It’s like falling back into old patterns. Instincts and countless missions together.

A pleased smile steals across his face and Natasha has to taste that one too. She’s worrying his lip between hers as James shifts them, settles between her thighs more comfortably. He rubs a circle on one hip with his thumb then rubs the head of his cock along her slit. She moans and nips his lip a little harder. It’s been so long.

He pushes in slowly, carefully, his breathing suddenly climbing in speed. She’s so wet for him already and they’ve done nothing but kiss. She feels nothing but elated joy. Her body welcoming in like a missing piece of herself has finally returned. His hands clinch her hips tight and he pulls back to look at her. The intensity in his eyes sweeps her away. A galaxy and a million more locked away in the waves of emotion there. She can’t breathe with it.

They both cry out when James is fully inside her. She’s so full of him. Brimming with the stretch and the heaviness of him inside her, around her, everywhere. She shudders. It shifts him insider her and it’s glorious that feeling. She locks her legs around his waist again and rolls her hips, arms encircling his shoulders.

“Fuck, you’re goin’ to kill me if you keep that up….”

“Mmm…if you’ve always said that’s how you wanted to go out.”

He snorts then pulls back to slam into her as punishment. It’s nothing of the short as she groans low and clenches tight around him.

“Not proving your case at all there.”

The rest of her words are lost as James sets his mind on driving Natasha out of hers. It’s a firm, slow tease. Strong thrusts like she hasn’t felt so deeply and so perfectly in too long. She’s slamming her hips up to meet his, clawing down his back, marking him as hers again because she can this time around. She hides her panting against his neck as he drives her to insanity again and again. It’s not enough. It’s never enough.

She whimpers and writhes under him. She wants more. She wants it all. He can play with her all he wants later. But not now. Hasn’t it been long enough?

“Natalia…I’ve missed you.”

That’s when his thrusts get harder, get even deeper. The couch rocks under them and she’s crying out his name again and again. Unable to stop herself, unable to do anything but give into the pleasure. He knows her body so well still. Every touch of metal against heated skin driving her further up that precipice. Those fingers slide down to press against her clit and she’s gone. Completely, utterly, the wall of pleasure slams so hard over her she can’t stop the keen.

She clings tight to him as he fucks her through her orgasm. Each thrust setting off another chain explosion of pleasure. She can’t survive this. She won’t.

He’s still against her, buried to the hilt, shaking apart as he comes deep inside her. It sets off another of hers and she wraps her legs even tighter around him.

“Yes, baby, yeah….”

She’s not sure who says it. Probably James. He was always the one with pet names. She never saw the point. She just doesn’t want this feeling to stop. She tucks her head against his neck and strokes his back.

Natasha’s floating. It’s peaceful like this. Nothing to worry about but the warm skin against her won. “Mmm….”

James isn’t still against her anymore. His hips are moving in small circles and his lips are trailing over her shoulder. Oh yeah, she remembers this too. The way he’d tease them back into round two and three and more. Every moment was precious and they made good use of them all. They won’t be done for a long while.

It makes her smile. “JARVIS, lock the door with my access code, no override access, and there better not have been any footage from the moment James stepped in here.”

“Yes, Ms. Romanoff. Now shutting off my systems present in your rooms.”

James is watching her now with a disgruntled moue to his lips. He seals his lips to hers as he skims his metal hand down the center of her body to slip two fingers inside her alongside his cock. He’s still half hard and the contrast in sensations makes her push her hips down into the touch. Oh yeah, her lazy day just turned into something much more pleasing. It’s a much better use of her time than what she had planned. Thank you, James, for rearranging her day.


End file.
